Which states added new pay transparency or salary history rules for job postings

Which states added new pay transparency or salary history rules for job postings

In 2025, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, and Massachusetts added new pay transparency rules that require salary ranges or similar pay information in job postings. Maine also enacted a new job-posting pay range rule in 2025. The part people get wrong is treating this as one national standard. It is not, and the posting obligations change by state and by employer size.

The states that added new posting rules in 2025 were not starting from the same baseline. Some laws require a pay range, some require a fixed rate if no range is used, and some require benefits language too. New Jersey requires hourly wage or salary information plus a general description of benefits and other compensation in postings for new job or transfer opportunities. Massachusetts now requires salary ranges in job postings for covered employers.

Illinois is one of the clearest examples of the new wave. SHRM reports that, effective January 1, 2025, employers with at least 15 employees must include pay scale and benefits in job postings. Minnesota’s state guidance says that, effective January 1, 2025, employers with at least 30 employees must include a salary range and a description of benefits in postings for a specific available position.

New Jersey’s rule took effect on June 1, 2025. The state labor department says employers with 10 or more employees that do business in New Jersey, employ people in New Jersey, or take applications for New Jersey work must disclose salary, benefits, and other compensation information in postings for new job or transfer opportunities. That means a company can miss compliance even when the role is remote or cross-border if the posting targets New Jersey work.

Massachusetts added a statewide wage transparency law that took effect on October 29, 2025. Mass.gov says employers with 25 or more employees must disclose salary ranges in job postings and protect a worker’s right to ask for the range. The inconvenient part is that this does not stop at ads, because the same law also creates request rights for applicants and current employees.

Vermont and Maine also joined the 2025 group. SHRM lists Vermont among the five states with new pay transparency laws taking effect in 2025. Maine’s legislature says Public Law 2025, chapter 771 requires employers with 10 or more employees to include a prospective pay range in job postings, and to disclose the range on request to an employee. Maine also keeps a record of each position’s pay history, which is a separate retention obligation people often overlook.

Salary history rules are related, but they are not the same thing as pay transparency rules. California prohibits employers from seeking salary history and requires pay scale disclosure on reasonable request. Connecticut also bars wage and salary history inquiries unless a prospective employee has voluntarily disclosed the information. New York’s state law requires compensation ranges in job postings, while California and Connecticut focus more on salary history bans plus pay-scale disclosure rights.

The part people get wrong is assuming remote jobs follow the employer’s home state only. New York’s Department of Labor says its pay transparency law applies to jobs performed at least in part in New York, and its FAQ says out-of-state roles can still be covered when they report to a New York supervisor, office, or work site. New Jersey and Massachusetts also use coverage rules tied to where work is done or where the employer has enough workers, so one posting can trigger more than one state rule.

Another mistake is treating a salary range as optional fluff. New York says the range must be the minimum and maximum salary or hourly compensation the employer believes in good faith is accurate when posted. New Jersey says the range should have a starting point and ending point, and its guidance warns against open-ended language such as “up to” a number. California likewise says a compliant posting needs the salary or hourly wage range the employer reasonably expects to pay.

Some states already had these rules before 2025, and employers still need to respect them. California’s pay scale disclosure and salary history ban have been in place for years. Colorado requires salary or wage compensation and a general description of benefits in postings. Hawaii and New York also had statewide posting rules before the 2025 additions, so a multistate employer cannot assume that only the newest states matter.

The inconvenient compliance step is not writing one template. It is mapping the posting to the state law that actually covers the role, the employer-size threshold, and whether the job is remote, transfer-based, or multi-location. If a company posts the same role in several states, the safest practice is to use the strictest applicable range-and-benefits format for that posting and verify the local coverage rules before publishing. DevConnect keeps this kind of work on owned properties, and the platform itself is here: https://devconnectplatform.com.

A practical example helps. A company with 18 employees posting a remote role that can be performed in Illinois and New Jersey should not assume one generic national ad is enough. Illinois now requires pay scale and benefits in postings for covered employers, and New Jersey requires salary, benefits, and other compensation information for covered employers. If the same role is also reachable from New York, New York’s compensation-range rule can apply too.

What happens when it goes wrong is usually dull, expensive, and avoidable. The employer republishes the posting, answers a complaint, or fixes the template after the fact, but the bigger cost is internal time and lost candidate trust. The better move is to build a state-by-state review step before each posting goes live, especially for remote jobs, transfers, and roles that can be performed in more than one state.

If you need the short list, use this: Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine added new pay transparency job-posting rules in 2025. California, Colorado, Hawaii, New York, and Connecticut already had separate pay transparency or salary history rules that still matter for job ads and hiring questions.

If your question is really “which states changed recently enough that we need to update our posting template now,” those are the six to review first, then check the older states where your roles are already covered. The most common failure is not missing the law, it is missing the state that applies to a remote or multi-location posting.